1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a circuit-board work system, and more particularly to techniques for establishing an operating environment suitable for an operator of the circuit-board work system.
2. Discussion of Related Art
There is known a circuit-board work system for achieving a predetermined work on a circuit board. Such a circuit-board work system is operated or managed through a terminal device connected to a control device of the system, in general, wherein the terminal device is commonly used by a plurality of operators who are assigned in turn to operate or manage the circuit-board work system.
It is preferable that each function or device of the system is placed in one of a plurality of different operational modes that is suitable for the currently assigned operator, for example, where the plurality of operators have respective mother languages different from each other. In this case, it is preferable that the corresponding device of the system is placed in such a mode that permits information to be indicated or displayed in one of a plurality of languages that is the most familiar to the currently assigned operator. However, in the conventional circuit-board work system, each time the display language should be switched from one to another, the power of the control device has to be turned off and then newly turned on after a required procedure (e.g., selecting one from among the plurality of languages) is carried out, so that the information are actually displayed in the selected language.
Further, it is preferable to limit commands acceptable by the control device, depending upon ability, job position and other characteristics of the currently assigned operator. Namely, the corresponding device of the control device is preferably placed in such a mode that validates one or ones of the commands which are really required for the currently assigned operator. For example, while the system is being operated by each ordinary or non-supervisor operator who is authorized only to carry out a routine operation for performing a predetermined work on a circuit board, the corresponding device should be placed in a routine mode in which only the commands required for the routine operation are validated to be acceptable by the control device. On the other hand, while the system is being operated by a supervisor operator who supervises the non-supervisor operators, the corresponding device should be placed in a special mode in which not only the routine commands but also special commands are validated to be acceptable by the control device. In the conventional circuit-board work system, a password has to be supplied to the control device, for establishing the special mode or validating the special commands, for example, in the event of a failure of the system. That is, in the event of trouble which can not be resolved by the non-supervisor operator, the password corresponding to each required special command is inputted to the control device by the supervisor operator, so that the required special commands are acceptable by the control device. In other words, the supervisor operator has to necessarily enter the password in the terminal device connected to the control device every time each special command requires to be validated.
Further, in the conventional system in which a working time of each operator is recorded independently of an outcome of the work achieved in the system, it is difficult to exactly know or identify one of the operators who was in charge of the operation on each circuit board in the system. It might be possible to identify the real producer of each circuit board, by checking the working times of the respective operators with the time at which the circuit board in question was produced. However, this kind of checking is cumbersome, and does not necessarily assure correct identification of the real producer.
In the conventional system, all the changeable functions or devices (such as a display device having different display-language modes, a command input device having different command input modes and a outcome data or operator personal data managing device having different managing modes) are placed in the respective modes independently of each other, as described above. Therefore, for establishing an operating environment of the system that is suitable for each one of the operators, a procedure to change a mode into another mode has to be repeated the same number of times as the number of the changeable devices.